Reading Milton Through Islam

John Milton’s poetry and prose are central to our understanding of the aesthetic, political and religious upheavals of early modern England. Innovative recent scholarship, however, continues to expand the range of contexts through which we read Milton beyond Christian Europe, unearthing the vitality and resonance of the Miltonic text within religious and political debates across borders, through time and in multiple languages. The Islamic world has begun to receive deserved recognition as one such global site of this cultural energy. The publication of complete translations of Paradise Lost into Arabic has stimulated fresh critical explorations from a multiplicity of perspectives: historicist, comparative and theological. Attention to spatially and religiously diverse influences and reception contexts offers new avenues of approach into masterpieces including Paradise Lost, Paradise Regained and Areopagitica, as well as into the cultural forces these texts represent, reimagine and contest. By exploring how Milton, Islam and the Middle East address and implicate one another, this collection asks how, why and where Milton matters. This book was originally published as a special issue of English Studies.

The first full-length study of the reception of John Milton’s (1608-74) writings in the Arab-Muslim world, this book examines the responses of Arab-Muslim readers to Milton’s works, and in particular, to his epic poem: Paradise Lost. It contributes to knowledge of the history, development, and ways in which early modern writings are read and understood by Muslims. By mapping the literary and more broadly cultural consequences of the censure, translation and abridgement of Milton’s works in the Arab-Muslim world, this book analyses the diverse ways in which Arab-Muslims read and understand a range of literary and religious aspects of Milton’s writing in light of cultural, theological, socio-political, linguistic and translational issues. After providing an overview of the presence of Milton and his works in the Arab world, each chapter sheds light on how cultural and translational issues shape the ways in which Arab-Muslim readers perceive and understand the characters and motifs of Paradise Lost. Chapters outline the ways in which the figures are currently understood in Milton scholarship, before exploring how they fit into the narrative drama and theology of the poem, and their position in Islamic creed and Arab-Muslim culture. Concurrently, each chapter examines the poem’s subject matter in detail, placing particular emphasis on matters of linguistic, theological and cultural translation and accommodation. Chapter conclusions not only summarise the patterns and potentialities of reception, but point towards the practical functions of Arab-Muslim responses to Milton’s writing and their contribution to the formation of social ideas.

In an unusual view of one of the English language's greatest writers, an Arab scholar analyzes the oriental influences on Milton's work, and Milton's own influence on Arab writers and critics John Milton's great poems, Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained, are among the greatest pieces of writing in the English language. Like other writers of his time, Milton had only a sketchy idea of Islam and the Arab world, from travelers and linguists who had made the arduous journey to and from the Middle East. But buried in his works are signs that Milton had absorbed ideas and influences from Islam and Arab culture. Professor Dahiyat shows how from the Middle Ages, partly as an attempt to counteract Islam with Christianity, a wide range of writers and researchers spoke, read, and wrote Arabic and published books in the earliest days of printing which Milton could have read. He then shows how many different references there are to the Orient and Islam in Milton's writings, and discusses the later response of Arab writers and scholars to Milton's major works.

This book traces the process through which authors like Spenser, Shakespeare, and Milton adapted, rewrote, or resisted romance, mapping a world in which new cross-cultural contacts and religious conflicts demanded a rethinking of some of the most fundamental terms of early modern identity.

This volume of essays reconfigures the reception history of Milton and his works by bringing to the fore women reading, writing, and rewriting Milton, bringing together in conversation a range of voices from diverse historical, cultural, religious, and social contexts across the globe and through the centuries. The book encompasses a rich range of different literary genres, artistic media, and academic disciplines and draws on the research of established Milton scholars and new Miltonists. Like the female authors and artists whom they explore, the contributors take up a variety of standpoints. As well as revisiting the work of established figures, the volume brings new female creative artists, new subjects, and new approaches to the study of Milton.

Milton in Translation represents an unprecedented collaboration that demonstrates the breadth of John Milton's international reception, from the seventeenth century through today. This book collects in one volume new essays written on the translation of Milton's works written by an international roster of experts: stalwart and career-long Miltonists, scholars primarily of translation studies, and practitioners who have translated Milton's works. Chapters are grouped geographically but also, by and large, chronologically, given that Milton's works radiated further abroad over time. The chapters on the twenty-three individual languages showcased in this volume are framed by 'Part I: Approaches', consisting of an introduction and two major essays on the global reach and the aural nature of Milton's poetry, and by an epilogue. 'Part II: Influential Translations' features the most influential languages in translations of Milton's works (English, Latin, German, French). Then, accounts of Milton's afterlives in specific languages are provided in 'Part III. Western European and Latin American Translations' (Dutch, Estonian, Finnish, Icelandic, Italian, Portuguese, European Spanish, Latin American Spanish), 'Part IV: Central and Eastern European Translations' (Bulgarian, Czech, Hungarian, Polish, Serbian/Montenegrin, Serbo-Croatian languages), 'Part V: Middle Eastern Translations' (Arabic, Hebrew, Persian), and 'Part VI: East Asian Translations' (Chinese, Japanese, Korean). The chapters in Parts II through VI include historical and critical context, a brief history of translation in the language, and a case study on any single work or group of Milton's works in translation.

This edited volume explores the combination of cultural phenomena that have established and canonized the work of John Milton in a global context, from interlingual translations to representations of Milton's work in verbal media, painting, stained glass, dance, opera, and symphony.

Christian-Muslim Relations, a Bibliographical History, volume 8 (CMR 8) is a history of everything that was written on relations in the period 1600-1700 in Northern and Eastern Europe. Its detailed entries contain descriptions, assessments and comprehensive bibliographical details about individual works.